12 Freedoms of Healthy Families

A few years ago I wrote a short ebook called “The 12 Freedoms of Healthy Families”and it’s been a while since I’ve shared it. This short little book is the basis for how we operate at Little Village Kids. The principles shared here are the ones we live by every day as we care for your children.

I’ve decided to share some of the freedoms with you in a series of posts. Please share these posts on Facebook, Pinterest, and other social media sites so that more people can know what makes our Little Village Family special.

The 12 Freedoms are divided into sections and the first section is Nurture. The first Freedom in this section is The Freedom To Attempt Fearlessly.

Nurture – The Freedom to Attempt Fearlessly

Success and failure are often separated more by confidence than competence. Members of healthy families know that, regardless of the outcome, they are supported in any endeavor.

Our society is driven by a desire for success. Often we parents stimulate, obligate, and motivate our children in a sincere effort to help them succeed. Yet, at the same time, we discourage them from attempting things that seem overly difficult. We have a conflict of interests when comes to our kids. We want them to be wildly successful, but we also want them to be completely safe. Anyone who has tasted success will readily admit that it’s only possible if we’re willing to take risks. The trick is teaching our children to judge the risk:success ratio and come out on top.

A generation ago we just wanted our children to be “happy”. While this desire had problems of its own, it did drive us to be extremely supportive and support is an essential ingredient for success. It’s no coincidence that the most successful children are often the most strongly supported. We resist the temptation to bind them with our own fears. They accomplish seemingly impossible things, because they don’t know those things are supposed to be difficult. Instead of filtering each other’s dreams through the tainted lens of “reality,” our families become fanatical cheering sections. Life has a way of imposing limits on our dreams quickly enough and family is the single greatest influence on our developing world-view. We need to nurture one another by supporting our attempts. We’ll be surprised at how often success answers support’s invitation.

Exercise: Create a family schedule for one month. Identify any events members have where the family can show support. Clear all the conflicts you can and show up to games, concerts, etc. to support one another win or lose.

This Week: Remove the word “can’t” from your family vocabulary. Only allow yourselves to speak things that support and encourage each other’s attempts.